Need A Little Spark In Your Romance?

Hello all! I am new to posting on SIP blog, but not a new reader. My name is Emilee and DeAnn is my SIL, and we were happy to help her out with this! D puts a lot of time and energy into these posts and I always feel that they have a great spiritual aspect to them even if she doesn’t feel that they do. Well they do for me!

I woke up from a Sunday nap to a full candle lit dinner! He went all out and decorated the table and everything, it was really sweet!

 One aspect of service that many of us may overlook is Serving Our Spouse. We tend to be with this person a lot and the time we spend with our spouse is generally taking care of household things such as cleaning and cooking, if you have children the majority of that time is spent taking care of them along with the household chores. But in order to keep your marriage and friendship alive you need to take time out of your schedule to serve your spouse. It doesn’t have to be every single day, but it should be often! It doesn’t have to be big, but it should be heartfelt. My husband Chip and I did this as sort of a back and forth conversation about serving your spouse, I hope you enjoy!

Chip-When it comes to service I really try to do something for Emilee every day, but life happens and you still have to go to work, and some still have school going on also (that would be us haha) so it doesn’t always happen as often as I would like, but there are still ways to make it happen.

Emilee-Chip is really awesome about surprising me with things, like flowers, or a note. Sometimes I come home from class and the dishes are done and the stove is clean. Not every woman would agree, but I think him helping around the house is sexy! Serving your spouse is a way to keep the romance lively in our house, it shows he is thinking about me and that he cares. He knows I get stressed and frazzled when the house isn’t clean, so him doing things to make sure that doesn’t happen is a great service for me.

Chip - Emilee is a gift giver, and so she really pays attention to what I need and when I need it. She is awesome with the follow through, even if it’s day to day things she gets them for me because I often forget to put things that I need on a list. She just remembers and does it! It shows that she cares about me and is constantly thinking about what I need.

DeAnn - Hey, how's it goin?! Just going to interject her for a second...we all know the statement below is true, we just forget sometimes, learn your love language and your spouses love language. Chip eats graham crackers and milk every night before bed, so I made him the mug to go with it. And Grumpy Cat is for me. Like I mentioned…Chip really loves graham crackers and milk, so I bought some specifically for him one day, and made him go on a scavenger hunt to find all the ingredients all over the house! Chip came home from work to cookies last week! Emilee - Boys don’t generally like flowers so I will make him treats, or make sure we have his favorites for dinner pretty often. To him, these are a treat, and to me I put extra effort into meals that I feel he might like. It isn’t big and extravagant…but it doesn’t have to be.

Chip - Service can sometimes be me coming out of my comfort zone to do things that Emilee likes that aren’t necessarily my favorite. I hate shopping, but I know Em loves it so I will go with her cause I know she likes me being there. Sometimes Em will do sporty man things that aren’t always her favorite but she will do/watch them with me and I really appreciate that. *(Emilee-Don’t take this the wrong way, I like sports…I don’t like football however.)

                                                       Chip brought these flowers home to me randomly one day, they are my favorite!

                     The lamps that Chip made for me after my weekend away…he’s quite the artist and I didn’t even know!

Emilee - We like leaving notes to one another quite frequently, they aren’t long, but they go a long way. We have a notebook that we hide around the house for each other to find. We call it “The Love Notebook”, only happy positive things go in the notebook…basically it’s just love notes to each other compiled all in one place. I would consider this service because it builds each other up and usually is the highlight of my day when I finally find it! Realistically speaking we don’t write in it every day but we try to get to it at least once a week each.

Chip - One thing that is really important to remember is that you need to REALLY know your spouse to serve them in a meaningful way. Being in tune with what they need, and how to give it to them in a loving way is really vital. Making your spouse a first priority is key, and follow through is easier to do when you have your priorities straight.

Emilee - I love that you just said that, because service is awesome but it won’t have the meaning behind it if you don’t really know your spouse. For instance, if I were allergic to lilies, and Chip brought home lilies…it wouldn’t have the same affect because I would feel like he wasn’t really paying attention to me.  I don’t mean to be ungrateful, but I would suggest that the service you give to your spouse is something that they enjoy and would be meaningful to them. For instance if your spouse doesn’t like chocolate, and you bring home a huge box of chocolates as a gift…it might miss the mark.

Emilee - Also, when either Chip or I is out of town and the other is home often we will take the opportunity of them being gone to do something big. Chip made some cute lamps for me last time I was out of town because he knew we didn’t have the money for new ones and he knew how much I hated the ones we had (they were from his grandpa…which he got from a church auction…from like the 70’s…need I say more???). Chip redid the lamps with some craft supplies I had around the house and I was floored! He did a really great job and it meant a lot to me, and it didn’t cost anything!

Chip - We were in the middle of moving and I had to go out of town for 3 weeks. Em packed everything in our house by herself! She was overwhelmed but she made it happen and it meant a lot.

Emilee - Service can be a cute thing to put in your house too, for all you crafty ladies! I have recently started writing notes on paint swatches. I put them on the fridge and they are also a reminder for me to continue doing service when I see them. I love that they are constantly a reminder to Chip that I love him. Service can be cute and functional!

All in all, serving can be big or small, a quick note or an extravagant gift. As long as we continue to show love and support to our spouses, serving will be easy and joyful to do.

If the format of the post is a little wonky you'll have to forgive me, blogger was whacked out with some serious glitches when I put this together. Hope you enjoyed the post! I asked these two to do this post because they are very much in love and anyone who is around them can clearly see it. Also they posted most of these pictures on Instagram or Facebook and it's just cute okay! Who better to talk about this stuff then a couple madly in love and who regularly serve each other. They have been married almost 3 years fyi :) Me and Jake will be married 9 years in November, it just goes by faster and faster!

Emilee blogs over at Pinstrosity, have you heard of it? They have been on Dr. Oz and lot's of other stuff head on over and check it out...

I would love to hear how you keep the spark of love and service alive in your marriage, it is really helpful to hear what others do so get typing in the comments!